Homemade Laundry Detergent

I've had several people ask me lately about how to make homemade laundry detergent, so I figured I'd put it on here.  And thanks to my best friend Cindy Lou, I'm even posting step by step pictures!  So,  here goes!

*I will post the recipe at the end and you can copy and paste it.  If you don't want to go through all the pictures just scroll straight to the bottom*

First you will need the following items:
Borax
Washing Soda
Ivory Soap or homemade soap
old boiler (you don't want to use one you cook with)
measuring cups
wash tub
cheese grater
gallon jugs (I always use Hawaiian Punch jugs)
sandwich baggies (if you want to put some kiddos to work and have them grate your soap while you do other stuff)

You will want to grate your Ivory soap before you start.  I like to grate my soap in bulk.  I usually buy a couple of packs of soap at a time and just put it in baggies.

Now if you are going to do it in bulk, just grate it one bar at a time and put each bar in a baggy.

Go ahead and pour 4 cups of hot water into your wash tub.  After you grate your soap or pull out what you grated previously, you will want to get your boiler and measuring cup.  Measure out 6 cups of water and pour in boiler.  Add 1 bar of grated soap or in my case, one sandwich baggy of grated soap.  Stir the soap until it dissolves completely.

After the soap has dissolved, you'll add 1/2 cup of washing soda and 1/2 cup of borax to the boiler.  I pre-measured mine and put it into a small bowl together.    

Stir until dissolved.  You will then want to pour the mixture into the wash tub (with the 4 cups of water you  measured up before you started).  *And pay no attention to the basket of laundry in the background=)  At least it's folded, right!*

Then you will just stir really well and add 1 gallon and 6 cups of water (also pre-measured).  Continue to stir as you pour.  If you are lucky, you have a good friend like me behind the scenes to help you!

Once it's stirred really well you will just pour it up into your containers.

Be sure to leave some room in the jug because you will have to shake it up each time you use it.  It will gel and be hard to pour.

And now you are done!  I've heard of some people waiting 24 hours to use theirs, but I never wait.  I usually need it immediately! hehe  

Today Cindy and I made over 12 gallons!  We probably would have made more, but we ran out of time.  Maybe next time.  

Ok, so like I promised, the recipe without pics so you can copy, paste, and print.  

1/2 cup borax

1/2 washing soda

1 bar Ivory soap (or your homemade soap)

Measure out 6 cups of water, pour into boiler, add grated soap.  Measure out 4 cups hot water and add to wash tub.  Stir soap until dissolved then add the borax and washing soda.  Stir those until dissolved.   Once dissolved, pour into wash tub (with the 4 cups of water we pre-measured).  Stir and add 1 gallon and 6 more cups of water.  Stir some more and then pour up into containers.  

*For anyone that asks....I'm not sure where I originally got this recipe, but there are so many different blogs and websites that have it.  And they have different variations of it.  If you want to know more, just google it!